Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 7/The Lineage and National Allegiance of Jason Lee
THE LINEAGE AND NATIONAL ALLEGIANCE OF JASON LEE.
From "Lee Family Genealogy," 1634-1897 and "Supplement" to the same, 1900; and "Forests and Clearings," a history of Stanstead County, Canada, as well as other original sources, the following was collated by F. E. Grubbs respecting the lineage and national allegiance of Jason Lee.
Jason Lee's American ancestor, John Lee, joined the Puritan movement led by Rev. Thomas Hooker of Braintree, Essex County, England, 1634, and was one of the first fifty-four inhabitants of Newtowne (Cambridge), Massachusetts Bay Colony. His residence was at the southwest corner of Holyoke and Winthrop Streets, near the present site of Harvard University. The next year, 1635, he joined the expedition under Hooker and journeyed through the wilderness to the Connecticut Valley, being present at the founding of the City of Hartford, Connecticut. Subsequently he was one of eighty-five to purchase a tract of one hundred and twenty-five square miles in the Connecticut Valley from the Indians. The original map is still extant and exhibits the several holdings of John Lee.
The family was prominent in all the military, civil, and religious affairs of the Colonies. At the outbreak of the Revolution, Daniel Lee, Jason Lee's father, lived at Willington, Connecticut. He was one of a company of Minute Men who, at the first alarm at Lexington, marched to Boston, was present at the siege of that city, and afterwards participated in all the battles in New York and the Jerseys. By the act of Congress, 1818, he was made a pensioner of the United States.
About the year 1797 there was a large emigration to the northern parts of Vermont and New Hampshire. Among the earliest of these settlers was Daniel Lee, who located on four hundred acres in the almost unbroken wilderness, and here, after six years, Jason Lee, the youngest of a family of fifteen children, was born. Upon this homestead is now Rock Island, which, together with Derby Line, forms a continuous village, through which runs the boundary line between the Dominion of Canada and the United States—Rock Island in Canada and Derby Line in the United States.
Quoting from "Forests and Clearings": "The State of Vermont previous to that time had been surveyed, but the line of demarkation had been so imperfectly defined that the early settlers hardly knew at first whether they were in Vermont or in Canada. In process of time, however, as the settlements on the frontier began to increase, the parallel of 45 degrees was supposed to have been ascertained, but it was not finally determined until many years afterward."
Rev. Wm. H. Lee, a grand nephew of Jason Lee, who visited the town of Rock Island to ascertain some facts regarding the family, says: "His (Daniel Lee's) house stood within a stone's throw of the boundary line, just on Canadian soil. The monuments that mark the boundary line between Vermont and Canada bear the date 1842, showing clearly that at the time Daniel Lee settled there the boundary was not definitely established. It is entirely unlikely that a soldier of the Revolution would, fourteen years after the close of that struggle, of his own volition, place himself under British dominion, and it is entirely probable that when Daniel Lee settled at Rock Island, he supposed his new home was on American soil."
Quoting from a communication to F. H. Grubbs from Principal Wm. I. Marshall of Chicago, 1905, illustrating the indefinite knowledge of the boundary line: "Soon after the War of 1812 closed our Government bought a tract of land at Rouses Point, which commanded the entry to Lake Champlain, and proceeded to expend about $200,000 in erecting a strong fortification there. Then a joint commission of British and American officers made a careful survey and ascertained that the parallel of 45 degrees north latitude, instead of being where it was supposed to be, was about two miles south of Rouses Point, and of course our Government ceased to continue work on a fortification on British soil."
The fact that he became a pensioner of the States Government by the act of 1818, indicates that Daniel Lee was, at that date, recognized a a citizen of the United States.
Under these circumstances Jason Lee was born, 1803, six years after his father had made his home in the unbroken Wilderness which nothing but an Indian trail had hitherto penetrated. In 1828 he became a student at Wesleyan Academy, Wilbraham, Massachusetts, fourteen years before the planting of the monuments that mark the ascertained boundary.
The above corrects the conclusions of H. H. Bancroft that Jason Lee was positively of Canadian antecedents.